Ashford, 64, and a former instructor at Cass Tech High School, had a heart attack in mid-November. Now, she’s apart of research at Henry Ford Hospital that studies how stem cells could treat the victim of a heart attack, and effectively strengthen the muscle afterward.

Henry Ford is the first hospital in Michigan and one of several in the U.S. involved in the research, which is known as PreSERVE AMI Phase II. The research is being sponsored by Amorcyte, a subsidiary of New York-based international biotechnology firm NeoStem.

The research involves using a patient’s own stem cells to build up and strengthen heart tissue.

It is still just an investigation, and the hospital is not implementing the practice as an established treatment, but the research so far looks promising, Gerald Koenig, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiologist and researcher at Henry Ford, said Monday in a release.

"Stem cell therapy offers new potential approaches in the treatment of acute heart attack patients to prevent further damage to heart muscle and improve function," Koenig said. "Current standard treatment options only limit the weakening of the heart. “

After a heart attack, many cells in the muscle are damaged, causing other, healthy parts of the heart to work harder. The body sends repair cells to the heart after cardiac arrest, but the results are often insufficient.

Using stem cells to repair the heart is not new research, but consistent success has not been established.

"Previous studies using adult stem cells to limit heart muscle damage and improve function have had mixed success," Koenig said. "Some studies have tried to do this too soon after a heart attack, and some tried the procedure at a later time. It has been determined that there's a window of opportunity one week to 10 days after a heart attack which is the optimum time for stem cell treatment."

Henry Ford’s research also involves finding the right kind of stem cell, which is critical to success.

Ashford qualified to participate in the study, which Henry Ford says has very strict criteria.

Marrow was taken from Ashford’s hip bone to isolate her stem cells in an outpatient procedure. Two days later, doctors infused either a placebo or the actual stems cells into the area of the damaged muscle.

"As a teacher, I always encouraged my students to participate in science projects," Ashford said in a release. "Now I could become part of a science project. It was an opportunity to practice what I preached, and I felt it would be beneficial."

"You don't make progress unless you take chances," she adds in the release. "I have a lot of family members in the medical field and I discussed it with them. They were very supportive, and I thought, why not? Now, I feel so much better. Would I do it again? Absolutely."